Give Us Wisdom
Sometimes I have to laugh at the varied reading material we have sitting on our coffee table. Hot Rod magazine right next to the latest issue of No Greater Joy. The Ezzo’s Childwise beneath Ginger Plowman’s Don’t Make Me Count to Three on heart-oriented discipline (coming more from the same perspective than you might guess). The Love Dare and vintage novel Mock Honeymoon (again, both with the same presiding theme, this time winning the heart of your spouse). Cindy Easley’s What’s Submission Got to Do With It? and Hallmark collection Married for Life.
The underlying theme is loving my husband and training my daughter. (Hot Rod was just to throw you off. I only read that over my hubby’s shoulder when I’m really too tired to read.) I’ve read a lot of books on marriage, but Cindy Easley’s is a new favorite (read my review here). I was raised with the Ezzo’s parenting principles — obey right away, and with the right attitude. You’ll find me raising my daughter with many of the same. It’s just a tad too controversial these days to say I like the Ezzos. But I’m finding the same biblical principles in Don’t Make Me Count to Three (even if the title kept me from buying it for several months, before I heard an interview with the author on FamilyLife Today). Ginger Plowman quotes extensively from Tedd Tripp (Shepherding Your Child’s Heart). And she trains her kids to say “yes, ma’am” (gotta love parenting authors from the South).
Mrs. Plowman’s entire premise in Don’t Make Me Count to Three is that you don’t just want your children to act like a Christian, you want them to think like a Christian. You want God’s principles written on their hearts. Not just in their heads. You want them to know how to tell the difference between right or wrong, whether or not you’re there, whether or not you’ll find out. You want to train them to glorify God–not just their “godly” parents.
That topic is one that has been much discussed in our home of late: whom should our children serve? According to some, we should be raising our little girl to serve her daddy, do his projects, be his right hand girl and secretary–in a phrase “fulfilling her father’s vision” until her husband comes along. I take offense at that, because I am his wife, and that is my job. I’m rather jealous of that task, even when it comes to my daughter.
Of course I want her to be her daddy’s little helper in everything from feeding the chickens to driving the tractor. Just like I helped my daddy haul firewood and hunt deer. I want my little girl to bake her daddy dozens upon dozens of cookies, and learn how to keep the house neat and tidy just as he likes it. I hope she will learn these things by my example. I want her to see in me the kind of wife she wants to be to her husband someday. But I also want her to see that her daddy is my first priority. I am his wife first, even before I am her mother. And I know that even though she probably won’t always screech in delight when she sees us kiss, it will always make her feel safe and secure to know that her parents love each other.
And I don’t have to worry that she will adore her daddy. He is already the highlight of her day. She has him wrapped around her little finger. Yes, he “has her heart.” She will always be her daddy’s little girl. But her daddy knows that her heart is not his to keep. He prays that she will learn to love Jesus. I pray for the boy who will someday come and win her heart, while her daddy talks about getting out his shotgun and cleaning it, just so it’s ready. But even then, as much as she may still be under our physical care and protection, and I pray her daddy will be there to walk her down the aisle while I proudly watch: she is not ours to give. She is God’s. And it is His Word she must obey, Him I pray she will love to serve.
We will be the first to argue the value of the home and family. We believe wholeheartedly in the benefits of homeschooling. We know my job as a homemaker is so much more important for me to do than any other work here on the farm. We believe firmly that God sets us in families for a reason. We are so very grateful for the families we were raised in, the parents God gave us. The older we get, the more thankful we become for our heritage, our upbringing. We know God gives wisdom to parents, wisdom that comes from years and maturity, wisdom that comes from them knowing His Word. However, we will not be bringing our daughter up in the wisdom and admonition of her parents: with His help, we will train her in the wisdom and ways of the Lord.
Because we also know that no family is perfect. No parent infallible. No man-made rule our salvation. If we place our hope in one Christian leader’s philosophy, the homeschool movement, or even the home itself, that will ultimately fail us. Only God and His standards stand the test of time and generations.
Our pastor, Dan Work, shared a story from his early years of ministry that seemed to sum it all up. In his first meeting with the head elder of the new church, the elder told Pastor, “If it weren’t for me, this church would not be on the straight and narrow. When I’m gone they’ll ‘go to h-ll in a handbasket’.” Pastor looked him in the eyes and said, “Then you have miserably failed.”
And if we don’t raise our little girl to serve the Lord rather than us, if we don’t raise her to be an adult who can make decisions dictated by her own conscience and relationship with the Lord, we, too, will have miserably failed. Lord, give us wisdom…
Excellent post, Gretchen. You haven’t heard from me before but I’ve been following the YLCF blog for years. Anyway, a hearty amen to everything you said. I’ve put a couple of those books in my Amazon cart. My husband and I have been married for 6 months and are expecting a baby just in time for our first anniversary. 🙂 So…I’m stocking up on child-training books! And it’s hard to read too many books on marriage.
By the way, can I thank you for helping to assure me that I’m not crazy? “According to some, we should be raising our little girl to serve her daddy, do his projects, be his right hand girl and secretary–in a phrase ”fulfilling her father’s vision” until her husband comes along. I take offense at that, because I am his wife, and that is my job. I’m rather jealous of that task, even when it comes to my daughter.”
I have taken offense at that attitude, myself, but had begun to wonder if I was the only one to feel that way! I want to be my husband’s only “right hand girl,” thank you very much. Even my own daughters had better not get in the way of that. 😉
Thank you for your always-uplifting posts! God bless!
Very inspiring! Family is one of the most precious things on earth! I close family is beautiful! Nevertheless I hope that when God gives me children of my own I’m able to raise them to serve him, not me or my husband.
So, so very true, Gretchen.
Raising kids isn’t about raising them for us, to serve our vision, and to make us look good. My ultimate goal should not be to have an amazing family, but rather to see them, life hard or easy, caring about God’s will and His Glory more than anything else!
What are arrows for, but to be shot forth? Thank you for saying what so few homeschoolers dare to say these days… All truth!
Great post! Thanks for sharing the books, I just had my first- A little boy.
Very inspiring. May you stick to these principles, even when it gets challenging!
Thanks so much for this post. I enjoyed reading it so much and have plans to get a couple of the books that were mentioned. I too struggle with teaching my kids to want to do right instead of just having to do right because I say so. Because considering that I too am human and prone to mistakes then that’s obviously not a good enough reason alone. This was an encouragement to keep on trying to learn and therefore be able to better teach. Thanks again!
Thank you so much for this article. I have really struggled with many of those concepts, and I really think you are on the right track. It sounds good to raise daughters to make Dad the center of their world, but it’s not really Biblical.
I have no children of my own… but I have seen and been instructed by many good/ bad influences.
I should read the one you have suggested.
maybe someday I will have my own, instead of being a nanny for other peoples.
I watch Super Nanny/ Nanny911 mind you I of course do not agree with the secular part of the concept. Over all I have learned and see myself with good/ loving parenting skills.
That is a nice title.. Don`t make me count to three, or even one….. As said they should be ready to obey right quick with a good attitude.
My sister who has 7 going on a million kids, who lives a Godly life, had once read and went thru the study called Growing Kids Gods Way.
I bet you both are great parents.
Liz
Hey Kristy… Yeah, I see other issues with it all, but the fact that I am my husband’s helper is my biggest issue…not to mention the easiest one to debate. 🙂 As to the Ezzos, I honestly haven’t read much more than their Babywise book (and I have to say that the “Babywise Bliss” DVD that was filmed in Australia is the cutest thing ever–y’all have the greatest phrases! ;)). So I guess it’s more that I agree with my parents’ interpretation of the Ezzo’s teaching… I can’t speak to the teaching itself. I know my parents got a lot of good out of it. And what you’ve seen as a result of it seems to be about the furthest from what I have read by them. (And incidentally, Biblical spanking is what I thought the Ezzos teach. Guess I’ll have to peruse this Childwise book I just found at the thrift store some more…) But I’m really, really liking this book by Ginger Plowman–more of a middle ground, going after the heart rather than just the obedience.
“hear! hear!” on the fact that YOU are merritt’s helper and not your daughter. that’s the issue i’ve had with the whole visionary daughters thing for years.
i’m a little confused on the ezzo’s thing being to teach your children to obey right away. i know a handful of different ezzo-believing families and obeying immediately is one thing they are not characterised by! maybe after many years of training but they seem to be characterised mostly by making a lot of noise and spending a lot of time sitting on their bed or in the passageway! so, unrelated to the ezzo controversy, i’m not a fan. it’s always seemed very headache-inducing. however, i definitely agree with what YOU say is their philosophy: teaching to obey right away and from the heart. it just seems to me (in australia) that biblical spanking is far more effective than what i’ve seen of the ezzo’s teaching. have you seen different results? maybe it’s lost in translation to australia? 🙂
Great post!
Quite so, Gretchen.